TV-Reviewed

Editor’s Note: This review was written during the season’s initial run. Keep this in mind when reading the following review.

First off props to the Otis Redding song that played through out this episode. It really helped bring some added emotion to the scenes. After the ending to last episode, we all though that the next episode would have to be pretty interesting. We were right, this episode was interesting, but probably wasn’t totally what we expected.

Christopher is touch and go, and his heart actually stopped for a minute, meaning he was dead for a minute. Christopher wakes up wanting to see Paulie and Tony, telling them both that he was in hell and he saw his father, Mikey from last season and other guys that they’ve bumped off or that have died. Tony chalks this up to the morphine drip and doesn’t pay any mind to it. Paulie on the other hand starts to believe it all and due to Mikey telling Christopher 3:00, Paulie can’t get any sleep.

Watching Paulie stress out about this was pretty hilarious, because he starts to think that maybe he’s going to be going to hell. The scenes where he goes to see a psychic were pretty funny as the psychic actually was accurate with names and everything. Paulie chalks it up as the psychic talking to people, but deep down he knows or believes that it was all real. Tony makes sense though in trying to tell Paulie that it means nothing, because it really doesn’t make sense why everyone would be falling Mikey’s lead. Paulie thinking that his donations to the church were supposed to protect from the fiery pits seems to think that he’s headed for hell no matter what and doesn’t see the point in donating to the church anymore. It was nice to see a young Judy Reyes (scrubs) and she’s actually one of the prettier girlfriends on the side compared to some of the other bosses.

Tony’s emotions were out of control this episode (like they’re ever in control). Tony simply doesn’t deal with traumatic events in a healthy manner. He takes his anger out on AJ, really insulting him and making him feel like crap. Along with this Carmella asks him to get a vasectomy, something that no man is going to want to do right out of the box.

Carmella and Tony’s relationship is sometimes hard to figure out, because you always wonder how Carmella can stay with someone like Tony and if she truly loves him sometimes. This episode basically confirms that Carmella just wants Tony. While their relationship isn’t always understood, it definitely works for the show. Tony’s session with Dr. Melfi resulted in another meltdown from Melfi. Dr. Melfi actually takes a stand and questions Tony business, not really questions it, but sort of tells him that she thinks it’s wrong. It’s something that she’s never done, she usually tries not to show any emotion about it. After the session Melfi feels really bad and starts to question why she would say this to Tony now with his nephew fighting for his life. Dr. Melfi has really been questioning herself this season with Tony. He brings something out of her, what is it that triggers this, we can’t be sure. They might possibly have the best chemistry on the show, because Melfi is the only person that Tony can fully tell the truth too without feeling too judged.

Well things didn’t turn out well for Monte (sorry I thought it was Matt), the crew eventually found him, like they always do and killed him.It was a gut-wreching execution as Monte’s last words before he died was ”mama”. It just kind of put into perspective that this was just a kid. He had the chance to tell the truth, but who actually knows whether Tony would have let him live or not. All I have to say is that no matter how many times we see an execution like that, the tension is always high and scary at the same time. It just shows that despite the somewhat human characters we get usually, that these guys can be murderers.

Pussy’s F.B.I. angle is coming along very slowly. His new plan is just to butter up Tony now, there are times when he seems obvious and you’re always thinking if Tony knows yet. Pussy’s on paranoia is screwing him up anyway. He’s overanalyzing everything that Tony is doing.

This was another good episode. It really delved into the faith of some of the people in the organization. It was also cool to see their views on whether or not that they thought they were going to hell and stuff like that. Faith seems to be a big part of all the organization members, and at least to Tony he doesn’t see anything too wrong with his business and considers it like war. Next episode is up in the air, but we can only assume that we’ll probably get back to the overarching storylines of the season and hopefully something gets going with it. The acting, the music, and the episode was just entertaining and good. It’s good to see The Sopranos start to make some good episodes.

Rating: 8.6